Showing posts sorted by date for query mind control. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query mind control. Sort by relevance Show all posts

2012-10-28

Evidence of Presentiment Without External Clues

Listen to Your Intuition, Because Your Body Can Predict Future Events Without Conscious Clues | Popular Science


Humans can predict the future when we have some evidence--like clouds and the smell of rain hinting at a storm. But can we anticipate future events without sensory clues?

Can your body sense future events without any external clue?

ScienceDaily (Oct. 22, 2012) — Wouldn't it be amazing if our bodies prepared us for future events that could be very important to us, even if there's no clue about what those events will be?
Presentiment without any external clues may, in fact, exist, according to new Northwestern University research that analyzes the results of 26 studies published between 1978 and 2010.
A business person playing a video game during working hours. Wouldn't it be amazing if our bodies prepared us for future events that could be very important to us, even if there's no clue about what those events will be? (Credit: © Vitaly Raduntsev / Fotolia)

Can Your Body Sense Future Events Without Any External Clue?: Northwestern University News

This phenomenon is sometimes called “presentiment,” as in “sensing the future,” but Mossbridge said she and other researchers are not sure whether people are really sensing the future.

“I like to call the phenomenon ‘anomalous anticipatory activity,’” she said. “The phenomenon is anomalous, some scientists argue, because we can’t explain it using present-day understanding about how biology works; though explanations related to recent quantum biological findings could potentially make sense. It’s anticipatory because it seems to predict future physiological changes in response to an important event without any known clues, and it’s an activity because it consists of changes in the cardiopulmonary, skin and nervous systems.”

The study, “Predictive Physiological Anticipation Preceding Seemingly Unpredictable Stimuli: A Meta-Analysis,” is in the current edition of Frontiers in Perception Science. In addition to Mossbridge, co-authors of the study include Patrizio Tressoldi of the Università di Padova, Padova, Italy, and Jessica Utts of the University of California, Irvine.

Visual Perception, Neuroscience, and Cognition Lab Northwestern University

Some more specific research questions our lab focuses on:
  • How do we perceive scenes, space, faces, objects, form, motion and time?
  • How do awareness, intention, and short/long-term experience influence perception and attention? 
  • How does auditory, tactile, and visual information integrate to generate coherent perceptual experience? 
  • What are the neural (EEG) correlates of dynamic perceptual and attentional states? 
  • What mechanisms keep our mind in a balanced (metastable) state, enabling us to generate different perceptual interpretations? 
  • How do people differ in their abilities to control attention?


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2012-06-07

Lucid Dream Control Devices

BBC News - Lucid dreaming: Rise of a nocturnal hobby


Lucid dreaming technically refers to any occasion when the sleeper is aware they are dreaming. But it is also used to describe the idea of being able to control those dreams.

Once confined to a handful of niche groups, interest in lucid dreaming has grown in recent years, spurred on by a spate of innovations from smartphone apps to specialist eye masks, all promising the ability to influence our dreams.

[...]

... Dream:ON, the most popular of the many new smartphone apps now available.

Created by psychologist Richard Wiseman, the app has seen over half a million downloads in just six weeks.

"The new wave of interest is led by technology," says Wiseman, whose app claims to allow users to choose their dream before bed, and plays sound cues once they have entered the right phase of sleep.

Dream:ON - The App to Influence Your Dreams


Before going to bed you indicate the type of dream you would like to have and when you want to wake up. You then place your iPhone on your bed and go to sleep. Dream:ON then activates and begins monitoring your sleep pattern.

When Dream:ON senses that you are dreaming, it plays a 'soundscape' that has been carefully designed to help create your desired dream. Whilst your chosen soundscape is playing, Dream:ON continues to monitor your movement and adjusts the volume accordingly to ensure you're not woken up.


Dreams can come true: Can we really control our night reveries? | Metro.co.uk

‘The app monitors your movements throughout the night because when you dream you’re totally still,’ said Professor Wiseman.

‘If it detects stillness in the 20 minutes before you wake up it plays in the soundscape then wakes you up at the end of the dream.

‘It seems to work for about 30 per cent of people. The more you use it, the more it works. Some people love it – it makes their dreams very vivid and very colourful.’

At the moment, the app is about incorporating the soundscape into the dream rather than initiating it. But in the future, will it be possible to control our dreams?

‘We know that you can because external stimuli, like your alarm clock going off, people often incorporate into their dreams. So we know the mechanism is there, it’s not a wild claim.’

The Dream:ON soundscapes are based on what customers want from a dream, but Professor Wiseman admits there have been some more outlandish requests than birdsong.

Taking Control of Your Dreams | Innovations

New York inventors Duncan Frazier and Steve McGuigan have taken a different approach. Instead of incorporating sound to help people shape their dreams, they use light. They’ve created a sleep mask they call the Remee, which comes with six red LED lights and runs on a three-volt battery.

The device waits until a person is four to five hours into their night’s sleep–a time when periods of REM sleep tend to last longer–then begins flashing the lights in a pattern that lasts 15 to 20 seconds. It’s a visual cue meant to remind the person that they’re dreaming, which is key to having them take control of what happens.

Clearly, there’s lots of interest in driving dreams. When Frazier and McGuigan posted their idea on Kickstarter, they hoped to raise $35,000. More than 6,500 people have pledged almost $600,000 to help them out.

Remee - The REM enhancing Lucid Dreaming Mask by Bitbanger Labs — Kickstarter

So how does it work?

Sleep stages are divided into two main categories: non-REM sleep and REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, where dreams typically occur.  Over the course of the night a sleeper will cycle through the five stages of sleep a number of times with the REM stages lasting longer and longer towards morning.
In default mode, Remee targets these long chunks of REM sleep towards the end of the sleep period. Before bed, turn Remee on, fine tune the brightness of the lights (if needed) and then go to sleep.  Remee will wait for an initial long delay, usually 4-5 hours, until you're in the heart of the heavy REM stages, before initializing light patterns.  After the initial long delay Remee will display light patterns for 15-20 seconds with a second shorter delay, default at 15 minutes, between each signal.  During non-REM sleep the lights are unlikely to effect you, but if you're in REM sleep the lights will bleed into your dreams, presenting a perfect chance to become lucid.

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2010-10-28

Dream Recording

New brain machine reads minds

Scientists connect activity of neurons to computer and show how a person can fade images in and out by thinking about them


A new advance in brain-machine interfaces could enable scientists to one day decode what a person is thinking simply by monitoring brain cell activity. 

The finding, detailed in the Oct. 27 issue of the journal Nature, could also help researchers understand how the brain performs its myriad visual tricks, such as recognizing someone in a crowd.


BBC News - Dream recording device 'possible' researcher claims

A US researcher has said he plans to electronically record and interpret dreams.

Dr Cerf makes his bold claim based on an initial study that he says suggests that the activity of individual brain cells, or neurons, are associated with specific objects or concepts.

He found, for example, that when a volunteer was thinking of Marilyn Monroe, a particular neuron lit up.

By showing volunteers a series of images, Dr Cerf and his colleagues were able to identify neurons for a wide range of objects and concepts - which they used to build up a database for each patient. These included Bill and Hilary Clinton, the Eiffel Tower and celebrities.

So by observing which brain cell lit up and when, Dr Cerf says he was effectively able to "read the subjects' minds".




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2010-04-11

Intel's Mind-Reading Software


FOX News.com

Intel Shows Off Mind-Reading Software


NEW YORK-- Mind reading may no longer be the domain of psychics and fortune tellers -- now some computers can do it, too.

Intel demos software that reads your mind

At Intel's Tech Heaven event in Manhattan on Wednesday, the company demonstrated software under development that can tell--under very controlled circumstances--what a person is thinking by reading brain waves. The chipmaker has been working with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh to develop software and an interface to convert brain waves scanned from MRIs into something recognizable by computers.

Though still in the early research stages, the technology looks promising to researchers. In a preliminary test conducted by Intel Labs senior researcher Dean Pomerleau, the system scanned a person's brain to record its activity while showing the person certain words, specifically concrete objects like "barn" and "house" and "screwdriver."




'Mind-reading' brain scan software debuts


The Human Brain demo is a joint project between Intel, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh to allow thought-based user interfaces.

The software analyses functional MRI scans to determine what parts of a person's brain is being activated as he or she thinks. In tests, it guessed with 90 per cent accuracy which of two words a person was thinking about, said Intel Labs researcher Dean Pomerleau.

Eventually, the technology could help the severely physically disabled to communicate. And Pomerleau sees it as an early step toward one day being able to control technology with our minds.

Carnegie Mellon Scientists Crack
Brain's Codes for Noun Meanings

Identifying Thoughts Through Brain Codes Leads To Deciphering the Brain's Dictionary

"In effect, we discovered how the brain's dictionary is organized," said Just, the D.O. Hebb Professor of Psychology and director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging. "It isn't alphabetical or ordered by the sizes of objects or their colors. It's through the three basic features that the brain uses to define common nouns like apartment, hammer and carrot."
    
As the researchers report today in the journal PLoS One, the three codes or factors concern basic human fundamentals: (1) how you physically interact with the object (how you hold it, kick it, twist it, etc.); (2) how it is related to eating (biting, sipping, tasting, swallowing); and (3) how it is related to shelter or enclosure. The three factors, each coded in three to five different locations in the brain, were found by a computer algorithm that searched for commonalities among brain areas in how participants responded to 60 different nouns describing physical objects. For example, the word apartment evoked high activation in the five areas that code shelter-related words.
    
In the case of hammer, the motor cortex was the brain area activated to code the physical interaction. "To the brain, a key part of the meaning of hammer is how you hold it, and it is the sensory-motor cortex that represents 'hammer holding,'" said Cherkassky, who has a background in both computer science and neuroscience.

Sources:
  1. FOXNews.com - Intel Shows Off Mind-Reading Software
  2. Intel demos software that reads your mind | Cutting Edge - CNET News
  3. 'Mind-reading' brain scan software debuts
  4. Jan. 13: Carnegie Mellon Scientists Crack Brain's Codes for Noun Meanings - Carnegie Mellon University
Related:
  1. Intel Labs - Pittsburgh
  2. Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging
  3. Intel: Chips in brains will control computers by 2020 - Computerworld
  4. 'Mind-Reading' Brain-Scan Software Showcased in NY - ABC News
  5. Showcase Overview: Tech Heaven - Intel Technology Innovation On Display - Powered by Google Docs
  6. 'Mind-reading' brain-scan software showcased in NY
  7. Incredible new interface from Intel will actually read your thoughts | DVICE
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2010-01-22

Video Game Success Determined by Brain Structure

Clipped from: Video gamers: Size of brain structures predicts success


Video Gamers: Size of Brain Structures Predicts Success


ScienceDaily (Jan. 21, 2010) — Researchers can predict your performance on a video game simply by measuring the volume of specific structures in your brain, a multi-institutional team reports this week.
The new study, in the journal Cerebral Cortex, found that nearly a quarter of the variability in achievement seen among men and women trained on a new video game could be predicted by measuring the volume of three structures in their brains.

The study adds to the evidence that specific parts of the striatum, a collection of distinctive tissues tucked deep inside the cerebral cortex, profoundly influence a person's ability to refine his or her motor skills, learn new procedures, develop useful strategies and adapt to a quickly changing environment.

Clipped from: Striatal Volume Predicts Level of Video Game Skill Acquisition -- Erickson et al., 10.1093/cercor/bhp293 -- Cerebral Cortex

Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on January 20, 2010
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp293

Striatal Volume Predicts Level of Video Game Skill Acquisition




Figure 1. Regions studied. Display in 3D and 2D images for the segmentations used to identify the nucleus accumbens (orange), putamen (red), caudate nucleus (blue), and hippocampus (green).

Clipped from: Video gamers: Size of brain structures predicts succes

Kramer, Graybiel, Erickson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign




Art Kramer (left) at Illinois, Ann Graybiel of MIT, and Kirk Erickson of the University of Pittsburgh found that the volume of specific brain structures could predict how well a person would perform on a video game. The study was conducted at the University of Illinois.

They used high-resolution Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to analyze the size of these brain regions in 39 healthy adults (aged 18-28; 10 of them male) who had spent less than three hours a week playing video games in the previous two years. The volume of each brain structure was compared to that of the brain as a whole.
Participants were then trained on one of two versions of Space Fortress, a video game developed at the University of Illinois that requires players to try to destroy a fortress without losing their own ship to one of several potential hazards.
Clipped from: Space Fortress :: CogWorks Laboratories :: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute / RPI
Research > Space Fortress




Space Fortress is an action video game that requires constant shifts of attention, memory retrievals, visual tracking, fine motor control, and dynamic decision making. We are creating a hybrid cognitive model to play the game, part of a larger effort in studying skill transfer.


Sources:
  1. Video gamers: Size of brain structures predicts success
  2. Striatal Volume Predicts Level of Video Game Skill Acquisition -- Erickson et al., 10.1093/cercor/bhp293 -- Cerebral Cortex
  3. Video gamers: Size of brain structures predicts success
  4. Space Fortress :: CogWorks Laboratories :: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute / RPI
Related:
  1. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  2. University of Pittsburgh: News From Pitt
  3. Video gamers: Size of brain structures predicts success
  4. BBC News - Video game success may be in the mind, study finds
  5. Are Big Brains Predictors of Success?
  6. Big brains for video games - Cosmic Log - msnbc.com
  7. Want to be a better gamer? Size matters | Health Tech - CNET News
  8. Skilled video gamers have bigger brain structures, more success, study says | The Toybox | ZDNet.com
  9. Brain Scans Reveal Video Gamers' Secrets - BusinessWeek
  10. Study shows that better gamers have bigger brains, are better learners too -- Engadget
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2009-08-07

Nanoscale origami from DNA: a new toolbox for building nanoscale structures

Clipped from: Precision Nanoscale Car Parts Self-Assembled From DNA | Popular Science

Precision Nanoscale Car Parts Self-Assembled From DNA

Scientists program DNA to fold in tightly controlled curves and circles—an important step toward building larger nanomachines.



Clipped from: Nanoscale origami from DNA

Nanoscale origami from DNA

Researchers develop a new toolbox for nano-engineering

Scientists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) and Harvard University have thrown the lid off a new toolbox for building nanoscale structures out of DNA, with complex twisting and curving shapes. In the August 7 issue of the journal Science, they report a series of experiments in which they folded DNA, origami-like, into three dimensional objects including a beachball-shaped wireframe capsule just 50 nanometers in diameter.

"Our goal was to find out whether we could program DNA to assemble into shapes that exhibit custom curvature or twist, with features just a few nanometers wide," says biophysicist Hendrik Dietz, a professor at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen. Dietz's collaborators in these experiments were Professor William Shih and Dr. Shawn Douglas of Harvard University. "It worked," he says, "and we can now build a diversity of three-dimensional nanoscale machine parts, such as round gears or curved tubes or capsules. Assembling those parts into bigger, more complex and functional devices should be possible."

Clipped from: Origami at the Molecular Level - WSJ.com


Bioengineers learn to fold DNA into complex shapes, which researchers hope will one day revolutionize manufacturing, medicine and computing. WSJ's Robert Lee Hotz reports on how scientists are manipulating DNA's chemical rules.

The original idea of using DNA as building material appeared in a daydream. In 1980, Dr. Seeman was sipping a Bass Ale in a campus pub at the State University of New York in Albany and musing about molecular structure. For no apparent reason, as he recalls it today, he thought of a picture by Dutch artist M.C. Escher, whose work explores exotic geometry. Then into his mind there popped a way to make Escher's patterns from strands of DNA.

Today, 40 laboratories are exploring the ramifications. Even so, it could easily be decades before anyone can translate such fundamental control over DNA assembly into anything useful.



Clipped from: caDNAno - Gallery

Self-assembly of DNA into nanoscale three-dimensional shapes

Shawn M. Douglas, Hendrik Dietz, Tim Liedl, Björn Högberg, Franziska Graf, & William M. Shih
Nature. 459:414–8. 21 May 2009.


Clipped from: Welcome to the Dietz Research Group: Laboratory for Biomolecular Nanotechnology at Technische Universität München.
Home

Welcome to the Dietz Research Group at TU Munich!

What we do & How we do it.

We develop novel scientific devices and methods for applications in biomolecular physics, biological chemistry, and molecular medicine. We use DNA to build nanometer-scale devices with atomically precise features. We customize proteins and study hybrid DNA-protein complexes. 3D transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and single molecule methods including optical trapping and fluorescence microscopy are among our routine analysis tools. Read more.


Sources:
  1. Precision Nanoscale Car Parts Self-Assembled From DNA | Popular Science
  2. Nanoscale origami from DNA
  3. Origami at the Molecular Level - WSJ.com
  4. caDNAno - Gallery
    Related:
  1. Welcome to the Dietz Research Group: Laboratory for Biomolecular Nanotechnology at Technische Universität München.
  2. DNA Nanotechnology For More Shapes and Tools
  3. Self-Assembling DNA Makes Super 3-D Nano Machines | Wired Science | Wired.com
  4. The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University | Yan Lab
  5. Centre for DNA Nanotechnology - CDNA
  6. Nanoscale origami from DNA: Researchers develop a new toolbox for nano-engineering
  7. Rolling out DNA nanostructures in vivo
  8. Self-assembly of DNA into nanoscale three-dimensional shapes : Abstract : Nature
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2008-12-12

Mind Reading Software

clipped from www.cns.atr.jp
clipped from www.medgadget.com

fMRI Extracts Images From The Brain

Researchers from ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Japan used a functional MRI machine on the brain to read the letters and symbols that the eyes of a subject were seeing.
clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk

Scientists develop software that can map dreams

The research investigated how electrical signals are captured and reconstructed into images - Scientists develop software that can map dreams

'Mind-reading' software could record your dreams

Brain scanning can now extract information directly from the brain: the subject read the word

Brain scanning can now extract information directly from the brain: the subject read the word "neuron" at the top, and software working with the brain scan images reconstructed the word (below) (Image: Neuron/Cell Press)

clipped from www.cns.atr.jp
Cognitive
Modules in the Cerebellum
Motor
Control and Learning
Vision
Dynamics
Decoding Neural Signals
Associate Professor
Yukiyasu Kamitani

We develop the decoding techniques reading the states of mind by non-invasive brain imaging, fMRI or MEG. Especially, we aim to reveal subjective perceptual and cognitive contents.


blog it
Related:
fMRI Extracts Images From The Brain - Medgadget - www.medgadget.com
Scientists develop software that can map dreams - Telegraph
'Mind-reading' software could record your dreams - tech - 12 December 2008 - New Scientist
ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories
Computational Neuroscience Lab.
Yukiyasu Kamitani
Brain Image Reproduction « Tjanderson’s Weblog
Scientists extract images directly from brain ::: Pink Tentacle
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2008-04-18

Emotiv's new brain-computer interface

Emotiv Systems recently unveiled a brain/computer interface system with a helmet and software applications. The Project Epoc system can move objects based on a gamer's thoughts, reflect facial expressions, and respond to the excitement or calm the gamer mentally exerts.

Brain controlled computer games

Below is a video discussing and demonstrating Emotiv's new brain interface.
clipped from www.sciam.com

Emotiv Systems introduces a sensor-laden headset that interprets gamers' intentions, emotions and facial expressions

EPOC GAMING HEADSET: Emotiv's $299 EPOC headset (with 14 sensors) will enable gamers to use their own brain activity to interact with the virtual worlds where they play.
Courtesy of Emotiv Systems


The EPOC detects brain activity noninvasively using electroencephalography (EEG), a measure of brain waves, via external sensors along the scalp that pick up the electrical bustle in various parts of the furrowed surface of the brain's cortex, a region that handles higher order thoughts.
clipped from www.emotiv.com
Emotiv Systems
clipped from www.emotiv.com
PRODUCTS

Overview
Emotiv EPOC™
Technology
Reserve your Emotiv EPOC™
Definitions
clipped from www.emotiv.com
DEVELOPERS

Overview
Detection Suites
Software Development Kit
Download SDKLite

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Related:
Tomorrow's Trends: Brain controlled computer games
Head Games: Video Controller Taps into Brain Waves: Scientific American
GDC 07: Project Epoc brings mind control to games - News at GameSpot
Emotiv Home
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2008-04-08

Mind Control

Mind control (or "brainwashing") refers to a broad range of psychological tactics able to subvert an individual's control of his own thinking, behavior, emotions, or decisions. The concept is closely related to hypnosis, but differs in practical approach.
There are a number of controversial issues regarding mind control and the methods by which control might be attained. Some are discusse in the next videos.


get your vodpod

Related:
Mind control - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
INFORMATION AND VIDEO CONCERNING MIND CONTROL
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2008-01-16

Mind Control Monkey Moves Robot in Japan (video)

clipped from afp.google.com
AFP

Japanese robot walks like a monkey

TOKYO (AFP) — It may walk like a Japanese robot, but it's thinking like a monkey in the United States. Japanese and US researchers said Wednesday they have created a humanoid robot that acts according to the brain activity of a monkey all the way across the Pacific.

The experiment was part of efforts to develop prosthetic limbs which can be mentally controlled by people with disabilities.

A laboratory in the western Japanese city of Kyoto unveiled a 155-centimetre (62-inch) tall humanoid, with a friendly-looking face including bulging black eyes, who walked via signals coming into its legs through wires.

Researchers said the robot was responding to the cortical brain activity of a monkey that was walking attached to wires on a treadmill at Duke University in North Carolina. The signal was sent via the Internet.

clipped from www.youtube.com

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